This blog is a collection of my thoughts and experiences from ten years as a skate dad. For those of you sitting with your jackets in the bleachers, first I salute you, but second I want to give you an honest sense of what you are in for and what to expect. Ice skating is both a trying and a glorious sport, but it doesn't happen without the special group of folks who cheer, support, and console the participants. This is dedicated to you.

Saturday, April 23, 2016

- truth and lies

In many aspects of life we get by with a good bit of fakery: we pretend to posess a certain set of competencies and then do our best to convince others of this veracity. We put on "airs". After convincing others of the potential of our capabilities we have some breather room to deliver upon the expectations we have set. Some of this will involve apologies for temporary shortcomings, and some of this will stress us to learn and grow to meet our own self-inflicted challenge.

Sports however generally don't work this way: you can't fib your way to the podium. Since sports are physical it's not what you say that matters but rather what you can do.

The physical part of skating works this way as well; you can't deceive others that you can accomplish a certain move. You can wonder, you can give it a try, you can work at it and practice until you get it right. Nobody is going to believe though that you can land a double Axel until you do it. Even though you have your good and bad days, your capabilities this very moment are immediately obvious and demonstrable.

Skating does have a flip side though: showmanship is a lot about a premise. It's about maintaining a front and a promise on what you can deliver. It's a lot of smoke and mirrors -- you move the ether and direct attention, you allow the effects of your costume combined with the music and the rhythm of your moves to create a manufactured effect. You are fibbing what you know about life by imagining what it might be about. To some extent the qualities of your lies need to be more tightly wrapped and precise than the qualities of your physical execution: we will forgive your small hop when you land as the physical realm can be unpredictable. We will be less forgiving of your imaginary faux pas as the theatrical aspect of skating is all of your own creative doing.

Novice viewers can end up with some cross functional psychic confusion here. Performance is a bit of a lie. Yet the athletics in skating is the physical truth of what you can do. When we watch a movie or the theatre we "suspend belief" because we are interested in the play upon the lie, the trajectory and path of the story caused by the false presuppositions. When we watch sports though we are adamant that the athletes stick to the rules: we are ruthlessly opposed to cheaters or those that extravagantly show off beyond their deserved reputation. Skating works for audiences only when the physical authenticity is maintained even while the skater spins an imaginary story. And it works best for audience members who are experienced enough to hold this dichotomy within their consideration.